Sonic Moon – Return Without Any Memory
Olde Magick Records – 2023
Rock, Stoner, Psych, Doom
Rated: ****
It had to be done. We could not resist. After jotting down some words about Domkraft’s Sonic Moons album, we had to immediately scribble a little about the Return Without Any Memory record by Sonic Moon. It feels like some weird kind of poetry and that’s the kind we love. But apart from the album name slash band name resemblance and the fact that both albums reside in the Heavy Underground, Sonic Moon’s album is entirely different. We mentioned their Usually I Don’t Care For Flowers EP from 2019 and this goes even deeper. A slow burning, grunge and fuzz toned doom trucker. Which only speeds up measurably on a few tracks. Especially on that third track, Give It Time, the driving motion gives it a powerful, forward pushing groove. But a lot of the other tracks do much more haze rocking, making the dance turn into dreams and hallucinations. Perfectly named opener The Waters already had it going on, the entire composition, rhythm, and guitar lines, feeling like a rippling of open water, causing reverie and a lightheaded trance, even though there is a doom trod, it still feels so weightless. A similar vibe is felt when fourth track Through The Snow meanders through your mind, frozen snapshots of long-lost adventures will drowsily dance around you and have your recalling all those emotions once again. And every single track on the album does this, although usually in a heavier, almost sludgier tone setting. And then there’s closing track Hear Me Now, that on some level seems to recap everything that came before and actually everything Sonic Moon might be about. Or at least on this album. Cause that one track goes through all these different settings, environments, and atmospheres, always heavy and always psychedelic. And those almost eight minutes of Hear Me Now never goes off into one direction or an explosive pay-off, yet manages to deliver you acquiescence with calm and a resolute take on heavy psych. And that heavy psych take is entirely Sonic Moon and something we hope they take with them and remember when it’s time for them to record their next album…
(Written by JK)
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